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That will only work if we are still in contention by late July. It might be smarter this time to build the team good enough before the season begins.
I don’t think we’ll see any St. Louis trade for Cease without the name Nolan Gorman included. If these two teams do consummate a deal, we could be looking at a good ole’ fashioned blockbuster trade, involving at least 6 players….a transaction that would have made Frank “Trader” Lane proud to have been an engineer of.
If you wait until the deadline, it may be too late. That’s what some said last season, how did that work out.
If the team is not good enough to make post-season, then another top starter isn’t going to make it a WS contender, whenever he is acquired.
This is from Fan Nation Inside the Cardinals…. Scott Neville 12-3-23
With that in mind, Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak appears fairly content with the starters in place. “We feel like we have a strong five right now.” “We feel like we have three or four guys that could give us depth throughout the season as well, so it’s not like a front-line priority but you never say never because something may pop up and make sense.”
Hmmm….. this could be dated 12-3-22. I drank the kool-aid and thought that this year would be different. I actually was thinking that Mozeliak finally realized that we need a #1. You can’t get too far with a #2 and a bunch of #4s and #5s. (see 2023)
ps…. the something that “may pop up and make sense” would be a new Front Office.
If Gorman is traded for Cease, it better be straight up. I know that Cease has some upside, but so does Gorman. 5 years of a guy who can passably play 3 IF positions and provide above average offense with slugging upside is pretty valuable in its own right.
14NyquisT
You can’t get too far with a #2 and a bunch of #4s and #5s.
I don’t know why you’d think Sonny Gray, #2 in the Cy Young vote in 2023, is a #2. Also, if you say, well, that’s a career year, no chance he replicates it, then you have to also assume Mikolas is going to be more than a #4/#5 with his past, same with Lynn and Gibson being around a #4.
Last 3 years, Avg ERA:
Gray – 3.30
Mikolas – 4.06
Matz – 4.06
Lynn – 4.24
Gibson – 4.49MLB average starter ERA in 2023: 4.45, over last 3 years: 4.28
I don’t know why you’d think Sonny Gray, #2 in the Cy Young vote in 2023, is a #2
What do Cy Young voters know?
The risk in using the average of the last three years is that this rotation averages 35 years of age. Late in every player’s career, his results begin to decline. Some do so faster than the others, but it would not be a stretch to guess that all five could have higher ERAs than their most recent three year average. Hope that is wrong and all rediscover the fountain of youth…
We have Mikolas, Matz, Lynn and Gibson for max of two seasons.
Most recent is most relevant, and weighted heavier (means more), for the reason BW explained.
Looking back by team control yrs left, and factoring in an age related decline, is kinda standard practice.
They were still well below the average of 4.45 as a group. So I’d venture to say that they will be better than ‘a 2 and a bunch of 5s’.
Just my opinion.
Well we have our rotation set I guess. Seems we have the roster set. Personally this isn’t enough to get the job done to me. So much for doing what they said they were going to do. Yea they got gray, that was a nice but costly pickup if we go nowhere with it. Lynn and Gibson are the kind of pitchers the Cardinals usually get, very low hanging fruit with a lot of prayers for freshness. The lineup is decent especially if young guys produce but it’s possible more regression by older players may cancel that out. Even if gray pitches as good as last season, it may not be enough to get us above third place. It still strikes me funny how they back ended the deal for gray but then don’t do anything with that. Maybe they will get a good reliever but we will see. To me it’s mostly been business as usual. I’ll wait til spring to make my prediction but it’s not looking bright n rosy right now.
With Gray getting $10 million the first year that puts the projected starting rotation at around $62 million, that is $5 million less than last years(2023)starting rotation…so they still have some flexibility and could have even more if they say were to add Matz in a trade with O’Neil or Carlson.
They also have to address the bullpen. Gallegos I think is a big key he has made 186 appearances the last 3 years.
Right now I guess the bullpen looks something like:
Helsley….injury plagued year in 2023
Gallegos…gave up more hits than innings pitched for first time in 5 years
John King…was pretty solid after the trade from Rangers in 20 appearancesLiberatore…pitched well in September 12 ip over 10 appearances 5 hits allowing 2 earned runs …still not sure on him though
Pallante….not a good year at all, after a solid 2022, needs to have a goood spring
Romero….needs to cut down on the walks but does have a lot of strikeouts
Naghton may be a lefthanded option if he can stay healthy and they don’t really have that many righthanded options left
A minimum 2 quality arms will probably be needed in free agency or a trade
Zach Thompson would I guess be in the mix or the #6 starter/long releif
Asked directly about concerns over the age of his pitching staff, #STLCards POBO John Mozeliak said: “I don’t worry about it. I know there’s some risk, but I don’t worry about it. I also think these guys know what they need to do to pitch. (Their past durability) lies the risk.”
— John Denton (@JohnDenton555) December 6, 2023
I will take a stab at supporting my previously stated position that acquiring Gibson and Lynn will substantially improve the performance of the rotation, and of the team.
I start off by presenting evidence that the problem with the rotation was the lower part, and therefore the solution must be focused on the lower part. The evidence: Cardinals winning percentage on July 30, the date Montgomery was traded away: .439. Winning percentage at season end: .438. So we did just a bad with him as without him. Logically, it follows that it didn’t matter who was at the top of the rotation.
Even though it does not seem to have mattered, Mo did replace him with Gray, which I believe is a pretty even swap, although some disagree. My evidence is 2023 pitching lines:
Montgomery 32 starts, 5.87 IP/start, 20 quality starts, 3.20 ERA, 3.56 FIP, 1.193 WHIP
Gray 32 starts, 5.71 IP/start, 17 quality starts, 2.79 ERA, 2.83 FIP, 1.147 WHIPSo lets look at the lower part of the rotation. What we have now and what we had in 2023.
Gibson 33 starts, 5.81 IP/start, 17 quality starts, 4.73 ERA, 1.318 WHIP
Lynn 32 starts, 5.71 IP/start, 13 quality starts, 5.73 ERA, 1.394 WHIPWainwright 21 starts, 4.80 IP/start, 4 quality starts, 7.40 ERA, 1.901 WHIP
Flaherty 20 starts, 5.45 IP/start, 6 quality starts, 4.43 ERA, 1.550 WHIP
Hudson 12 starts, 5.41 IP/start, 4 quality starts, 4.98 ERA, 1.5000 WHIP
Liberatore 11 starts, 4.45 IP/start, 2 quality starts, 5.35 ERA, 1.476 WHIP
Thompson 9 starts, 5.0 IP/start, 1 quality starts, 4.48 ERA, 1.417 WHIP
Woodford 8 starts, 4.13 IP/start, 0 quality starts, 6.23 ERA, 1.741 WHIP
Rom 8 starts, 4.14 IP/start, 0 quality starts, 8.02 ERA, 2.079 WHIPFor pitchers who also appeared in relief, only stats in starter role are used in calculations.
Gibson and Lynn will hopefully combine for 64-66 starts, whereas the pitchers in the last year group combined for 89. This due to covering the 4th and 5th rotation slots, plus failures to answer the bell further up in the rotation. But with Gray, Mikolas and Matz at the top, all these guys, and their results, will theoretically be replaced by Gibson and Lynn.
One thing that stands out is 30 quality starts (out of 65) replaces 17 quality starts (out of 89). The other thing is that everybody in the last year group had a higher WHIP than both Gibson and Lynn.
I found a couple mistakes in my numbers. The ERA and WHIP numbers for the last year group were copied from the overall column on my spreadsheet rather than the starter role column. It mostly didn’t matter much with the folowing exceptions.
Liberatore’s ERA as a starter was 5.88 and WHIP 1.633, Woodford’s ERA as a starter was 6.95.
Sorry I messed that up.
Thanks for the summary BB, of how things did shake out last season. Appreciate the effort, ya’ wonk!
Darn you, bling! Your work sent me down a rabbit hole researching aging curves for starting pitchers. Even after reading multiple articles, I was not able to come up with a numeric estimate for the expected level of decline for the aging new pitchers. But I doubt they can be counted upon to pitch at the same level this year as last. At least not if they are typical for their age. But maybe it is a Lake Wobegon staff, where everyone is above average! 😉
I had noticed that my head is more egg shaped than it used to be.
After studying the 2023 game logs for all of those pitchers, another thing that stood out was that instances of Gibson or Lynn getting blown out early was exceedingly rare. Instances where our last year group got blown out early was common in comparison. Gibson and Lynn almost always exited leaving their team with a chance to win, whereas the last year group often did not. Additionally, the last year group excelled at early exits and short starts, thus regularly trashing the pen, but less than 5 innings was unusual for Lynn and Gibson.
This is where the improvement over last year will have to come from, and it could potentially make a huge difference in the team’s fortunes. I say this because Gray/Mikolas/Matz vs Montgomery/Mikolas/Matz is essentially a wash.
Some aging pitchers gradually lose steam and others go over a cliff. But I have noticed that the same often happens to pitchers regardless of age. The shelf life can be short, and in any given year, injury seems more likely to factor into what kind of year a pitcher has than anything else, including age. So if you are looking at established ML pitchers and are going to look at the risk of having a worse year than the one before, you really need to be looking more toward IL stint history than age. I consider a guy who just did 32 starts to be a good bet.
I think IL history and age are both important, especially for 36-year-old pitchers.
To me, Lynn’s three year ERA trend is particularly concerning.
2021 2.69
2022 3.99
2023 5.73Gibson had two years over five with the Phils before lowering it slightly to 4.73 in his one year with Baltimore.
Being healthy and durable is admirable. Being healthy and good would be even better.
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